DIY Drop Spindle Saga II

Or, How To Make A Drop Spindle For Under $5 Using Sheer Bloody-Mindedness And Excessive Stinginess.

A while back I made my first drop spindle using little more than stubbornness. While I certainly have had a moderate amount of success using this caster-wheel spindle, I also am more aware of it’s flaws. (Those of you who were foolhardy enough to follow my directions might want to take notes.) For one, it’s heavy at around 3oz. Defintly too heavy for spinning fine, which I want to do. For two, because it’s heavy, the wheel slowly pushed the tape down the shaft, causing a shift in balace and a slightly sticky mess. I’ve re-taped the thing more than once now – yes, I know that glue would fix this, I just didn’t want to stop and wait for it to dry when I’d already started spinning.

I’ve been looking online at spindles, but (as you may have realized by now) am a stingy person at heart, so am not ready to commit to a purchase. I’d like to know if I prefer top-whorl or bottom-whorl, how light/heavy I’m confortable with, etc. There’s a bag of fibre from my secret pal begging to be spun, and if I’m not going to use the caster-wheel spindle, or the soapstone spindle (which I’m sure wil be good for very fine spinning, in time), or buy something, then I guess it’s time to make more!

Here’s what I did:

I went to the local art supply store and picked up a 500g. bag of air-hardening craft clay, for the very low price of $3.58! I got mine in “terracotta” colour, just because. I still had dowelling left over from the first time, and if I need more they’re like $1.50, so no worries there. Otherwise, the rest of my supplies (kitchen scale, bamboo skewers, waxpaper, water, etc) I had already. I assembled them on my table…

…and began to sculpt!

Ok, yes, by “sculpt” I really mean “play with clay and make a mess on the table”, but you get the point. I tried to keep things as even as possible around the centre hole (not easy, but I tried), and otherwise just had fun trying to replicate whorls I’ve seen elsewhere.

This is what I ended up with:

I made a bead-type whorl with incised Celtic-style spirals, a convex whorl with a bit of weight in the centre, and a spiral “clay snake” whorl. I’m going to use the bead-type whorl in a bottom-weighted spindle, and try the other two as high-whorls. I’m a bit worried about how these will hold up when dropped (yeah, it’s still a “when” and not “if”), but there’s only one way to find out! I’ll let you know once the clay dries…

Some of you may remember I wrote the following regarding buying a pack of wooden toy wheels: (I’d guess defrayed cost of individual spindles would work out to under $10 each; I just don’t need 6 spindles!). I’d take it kindly if you would quitely ignore the fact that I will soon have something suspiciously close to six spindles, and plan on making and buying more…

Available in Technocolor

Today, after much dithering, I bought a Kodack “EasyShare” digital camera! It’s not fancy, but it’s mine.

Let the pictures begin!

I was at a bit of a loss as to what to show you first. I mean, there’s my current knitting, my work knitting, even my poor “UFOs”; I could “flash my stash”(albeit belatedly) I could show things I’ve already finished… How to choose? Well, I figure that you’ll be getting to see all of it, eventually, as I figure this new toy out. But I figured that one of the few photos to first grace this blog so far has been of my FleeceArtist slivers for spinning, so it seems just and right that I should begin with that here.

Without further ado, I give you my first homespun yarn!

There’s another skien waiting to be washed, too…

Yes,yes, my photography skillz are in need of a bit of improvement. Bear with me, and I’m sure there will be plenty of good things to tempt your eyes in time! Also, I promise to figure out how to link things up properly with Flickr so you can see things at the size of your choice. For now, though, just go here.

Progress(es).

I finished spinning and plying the FleeceArtist BFL this morning, but haven’t had the brainpower to skein and wash it yet. Until that’s done, I don’t feel like I’ve fully made the yarn. Probably tomorrow, though, and then I’ll be very excited. Also there has been serious progress on the Gatsby Girl, but she deserves her own post, so I’ll save that for later as well.

Tonight I need something simple and low-key. Something to prepare for the next stage in my spinning journey, since I received a ton of undyed wool so thoughtfully from my Secret Pal. I think I’ll hunt through my stash for suitable yarn and beads to try making a beaded wrist distaff. Yep, that sounds like a good plan. Off I go!

Got in in three

Gatsby Girl’s second sleeve is done.

Again.

But this time, it’s the same size as sleeve-the-second-mark-1. Which means that I now have two sleeves of equal length and proportions, just as called for.

This is indeed a good thing, but I’m just not feeling like I’ve got much to celebrate. When I finished second-sleeve-the-first, I felt elated, truimphant. Not so much, doing it over. Nevertheless, it is done.

Let the seaming commence!

note to self: really must learn crochet, or, must take GG to MIL.

unknown classics by the knitting masters

from a dream last night
…I was in a huge library, a grand affair with wood panelling over the walls, carven handrails with brass fittings, dust motes shining in the tinted light of stained glass windows. I began hunting through the shelves, looking for knitting books. I found the ‘crafts’ section and scanned the spines. Many familiar names were written there: a cookbook by Elizabeth Zimmereman; a woodworking handbook by Debbie New; one on interior design my Eunny Jang, and other such texts. But nothing on knitting! I even asked a librarian, but she just directed me into a small closest of oversized medieval manuscripts, and I was worried that Dru and I would be locked in, so didn’t stay long to read the red and black lettering or view the Arthurian illuminations…

Brrrring! Brrrring! Baa.

Would you knit from these sheep?